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This Week on Unchained: Bitcoin's Crash, Privacy Coins, DAT Stress and AI Payments
Don't miss this week's content!
Juan Aranovich
November 16, 2025
Good Sunday! Here’s what we unpacked this week on Unchained:
🕵️ Privacy Coins Are Back in the Spotlight
What is really driving renewed interest in Zcash and onchain privacy tech.
📊 Bitcoin’s price action
Whether BTC looks fragile, where ETH may find support, and why Zcash still has momentum.
🎁 Uneasy Money on ICOs and Airdrops
Why ICO style launches are returning and why new airdrops are getting smaller.
⚖️ DEX in the City on DeFi Responsibility
What happens after a hack and why crypto law is struggling to keep pace.
🏛️ Bits + Bips on Debt, DATs and Stablecoins
How macro pressure is showing up in DAT prices and why stablecoin forecasts keep growing.
🤖 AI Payments and the x402 Standard
How a new protocol aims to let AI agents pay each other in real time.
Why the Privacy Coins Mania Is Much More Than Price Action
Privacy coins are pumping, but builders say the real story is surveillance, personal protection, and a looming national security problem.
In this episode, Josh Swihart, CEO of the Electric Coin Company, which created Zcash, and Harry Halpin, co-founder of Nym, join Laura to delve into why privacy coins have taken off, and why technology is suddenly at the center of conversations involving governments, financial institutions, and national security officials.
They discuss what’s actually driving the privacy coin renaissance, why transparent ledgers create risks far beyond user behavior, and how technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and mixnets are reshaping what’s possible onchain.
Josh and Harry also break down exchange support, institutional interest, the Zcash DAT, upcoming Zcash upgrades, and whether Ethereum or Solana (or others) can realistically add privacy to chains that were never designed for it.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, PumpFun, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Bitcoin’s Outlook, ETH’s Next Major Support and Why Zcash’s Run Isn’t Over: Bits + Bips
Bitcoin’s price continues to look shaky. Fairlead Strategies founder Katie Stockton breaks down the charts to explain where it could fall next.
Bitcoin continues to look weak, falling through the psychologically important $100,000 level. Is the cycle over?
In this episode, Fairlead Strategies founder Katie Stockton joins Unchained Executive Editor Steve Ehrlich to break down the charts. She explains how the Bitcoin market has changed and Ethereum’s potential trajectory.
She also takes a look at the state of the DAT sector and Zcash’s steep rise.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Uneasy Money: ICOs Are Back and Why Airdrops Are Instantly Dumped
Airdrops are shrinking, ICOs are returning, and DeFi’s distribution playbook is breaking. The hosts debate what’s driving the shift.
In this first episode of Uneasy Money, hosts Luca Netz, Kain Warwick, and Taylor Monahan dig into the Balancer hack, Berachain’s centralized response, the sudden return of ICO-style distribution, and why some new drops give away so little.
Luca explains why he thinks generous airdrops are essential for building a real “army,” Taylor breaks down MetaMask’s own thinking on token incentives, and Kain questions whether any of these models still make sense in a sentiment-driven market.
Plus, Uniswap’s fee switch proposal and the tea on Velodrome and Aerodrome.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Why the Privacy Coins Mania Is Much More Than Price Action
Privacy coins are pumping, but builders say the real story is surveillance, personal protection, and a looming national security problem.
In this episode, Josh Swihart, CEO of the Electric Coin Company, which created Zcash, and Harry Halpin, co-founder of Nym, join Laura to delve into why privacy coins have taken off, and why technology is suddenly at the center of conversations involving governments, financial institutions, and national security officials.
They discuss what’s actually driving the privacy coin renaissance, why transparent ledgers create risks far beyond user behavior, and how technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and mixnets are reshaping what’s possible onchain.
Josh and Harry also break down exchange support, institutional interest, the Zcash DAT, upcoming Zcash upgrades, and whether Ethereum or Solana (or others) can realistically add privacy to chains that were never designed for it.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Who Saves You in a DeFi Hack? Protocols, Courts or No One? - DEX in the City
Who’s responsible when code breaks and why crypto law is still stuck in neutral.
In this first episode of DEX in the City, hosts Jessi Brooks of Ribbit Capital, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos of StarkWare, and Vy Le of Veda dig into the questions that DeFi keeps forcing the industry to confront.
They debate how projects should respond after exploits like the recent Balancer hack, what “programmable risk management” could look like in practice, and why the idea of “pure DeFi” might be more myth than model. They also cover the MIT Brothers trial (and what its mistrial revealed about the law’s limits in crypto) and end with why the long-awaited crypto market structure bill still isn’t close to the finish line.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Every Fortune 500 Company Will Be a DAT: Bits + Bips
The government’s about to reopen, but the debt problem hasn’t gone anywhere. Plus, DATs are trading below par and stablecoins dream of a $3 trillion market.
The government’s about to reopen, but the economic cracks aren’t healing.
From runaway debt to DATs trading below NAV, markets are feeling the strain of unsolved macro problems.
In this week’s Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell and Chris Perkins are joined by Matt Zhang of Hivemind Capital and Felix Jauvin, head of content at Blockworks and host of Forward Guidance, to unpack what happens when policy meets reality.
They discuss why a $2,000 “tariff dividend” could ignite inflation, how America’s ballooning debt is constructive for crypto, and why DATs could still have plenty of potential, despite already showing cracks.
Plus: the Bank of England’s £20K stablecoin proposal, whether $3 trillion is too low a target for the sector, and a final provocation: is XRP worth more than Ripple equity?
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
How the x402 Standard Is Enabling AI Agents to Pay Each Other
Agentic commerce is coming fast. x402 is the standard trying to power it.
For decades, the internet has worked without a native way to pay for things. Credit cards were bolted on, platforms built their own integrations, and developers had to stitch together complex payment flows to charge even a few cents for anything.
But with AI agents now making requests, triggering actions, and needing to pay for data or services instantly, that old patchwork is starting to break.
In this episode, Laura Shin speaks with Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering for Coinbase’s Developer Platform, and Sam Ragsdale, founder of Merit Systems, about x402, a new open standard for internet-native payments designed for the AI era.
They discuss why AI has revived a decades-old idea, how x402 works under the hood, why devs say the experience is simpler than traditional payments, and how stablecoins make microtransactions economically viable. They also dive into the big debates: no chargebacks, chain-agnostic design, the shift to a foundation, and how this standard could eventually work with fiat as well.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In Case You Missed It 👀
The crypto influencer turned CEO leveraged his celebrity into a highly lucrative agreement. But with DATs struggling, some investors are expressing angst about the package.
Bitcoin and other risk assets are trending downwards amid bullish macro trends as analysts search for key layers of support.
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